Physical Informations

The Famous Khokak Beach in Cataingan

Location and area Situated at the foot of the narrow peninsula in the southeastern part of the island province of Masbate and about 77 kilometers southeast of Masbate City is the progressive municipality of Cataingan. It is bounded on the southwest by the municipality of Placer whose town center is linked to Cataingan Poblacion by about 17 kilometers of provincial road, on the north by Palanas, by 19 kilometers, and on the south by Pio V. Corpuz, by 25 kilometers. It is connected to the capital town by concrete asphalt-paved national highway. Its eastern portion faces the Samar Sea, the Poblaacion, itself is situated on a coastal area, facing what is usually referred to as Cataingan Bay.

Geographically, Cataingan is located at about 123 degrees 55 minutes East Longitude and about 11 degrees 52 minutes North Latitude.The land area is 224.21 square kilometers, 4.47 km² (2%) is urban and the rest is rural. It is 5.05% the size of Masbate Province.

Topography and land features The topography of Cataingan is generally rugged, with several fertile plains between the elevation. Although Cataingan is basically a coastal municipality, its bigger portion situated in the hinterlands of Masbate. Including the Poblacion, it is composed of 36 barangays, eight (8) of which are found along the national highway, nine (9) are along the seashore and the rest are in the interior. The general characteristics of the terrain are from gently rolling and sloping to hilly and mountainous.The municipality’s highest elevation is at 300 meters above mean sea level (AMSL) at the northern part which is mountainous; the lowest is located at the coastal portion of the Poblacion and of the other seashore barangay at about 2 meters AMSL.

Although the central part is hilly, it is traversed by several rivers which serve as its natural drainage.

The general direction of the elevation is from the coast and southwestern portion which are level to nearly level converging at the middle where Mt. Bagacay and Mt. Tuybo soar to an elevation of about 300 meters.

Geology The municipality of Cataingan is reflective of the various geologic formations of the Masbate island basins which consist largely of meta-sedimentary rocks such as argillites, quartzite and marbles. Such geologic formation provides a stable aquifer of groundwater for domestic use.Land use Cataingan’s land area constitutes 5.05% of the territorial land of Masbate Province.Many of the municipality’s open grasslands and pasture lands may have already been converted to agriculture. Thus, agriculture occupies the biggest percentage of the general land use, of which more than 48% of the total land area are planted to coconuts.

The pasture land, which was a large area and the open grasslands occupy only about 14.55% of the total land use. The site on which the present town is located had been a part of the vast Spanish pasture land on which several corrals were built where a large number of livestock animals, particularly cattle, were raised. Cataingan had derived its name from a derogatory term “kataijan” meaning the place of animal manure because the site was practically covered with animal refuse.

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